“Michael Lewis is the Sheriff of Wicomico County, Maryland and what he has to say is absolutely jaw dropping.

“I was sick to my stomach like everybody else. … This was urban warfare, no question about it. They were coming in absolutely beaten down. The [city officers] got out of their vehicles, thanked us profusely for being there, apologized to us for having to be there. They said we could have handled this, we were very capable of handling this, but we were told to stand down, repeatedly told to stand down,” he said. “I had never heard that order come from anyone — we went right out to our posts as soon as we got there, so I never heard the mayor say that. But repeatedly these guys, and there were many high-ranking officials from the Baltimore City Police Department … and these guys told me they were essentially neutered from the start. They were spayed from the start. They were told to stand down, you will not take any action, let them destroy property. I couldn’t believe it, I’m a 31-year veteran of law enforcement. … I had never heard anything like this before in my life and these guys obviously aren’t gonna speak out and the more I thought about this, … I had to say a few things. I apologize if I’ve upset people, but I believe in saying it like it is.”

The claims made by Lewis seem to be confirmed by “a senior law enforcement source” quoted by Fox News. And this “senior law enforcement source” says that the order to stand down came directly from the mayor”

The mayor seems to have some interesting things in her background also.

Baltimore on Fire.
A curfew has been imposed. A state of emergency has been declared. The Maryland National Guard have been activated. According to the Guardian “At least 27 people were arrested and 15 police officers were injured”

As far as exposing and opposing police and government corruption goes, as soon as the first projectile is thrown or the first fire is lit, the oppressors have already won whether it was provocateurs or fools doesn’t even matter now.
Destruction, regardless of the cause, will destroy the cause. When the crowd doing it are almost all African-American that is even more so.
The whole case is submerged underneath the burning cars and flying projectiles.

Freddie Gray’s death was a Homicide.

The case of Freddie Gray is one of the many recent apparent police murders in the US. Freddy Gray having been arrested for possession of a knife, was apparently violently attacked in custody on April 12th, ,an attack that caused severe spinal injuries that led to the 25 year old’s death in hospital several days later.

The events that led to the death of Freddie Gray as related by Wikipedia.

“Police encountered Freddie Gray on the morning of April 12, 2015,[5] in an area of Baltimore known for drug deals and violent crimes, according to a police spokesperson.[2] Gray attempted to flee “unprovoked” on foot, but police on bicycles chased and tackled Gray, found a switchblade in his pocket, and took him into custody at 8:40 a.m.[5][10] Two bystanders captured Gray’s arrest with video recordings, showing Gray being dragged into the van by officers. A bystander with connections to Gray stated that the officers were “folding” Gray—with one officer bending Gray’s legs backwards, and another holding Gray down on his neck with his knee. Another witness told the Baltimore Sun that they had witnessed Gray being beaten with batons.[5][11]
According to the police timeline, Gray was in a transport van within 11 minutes of his arrest, and within 30 minutes, paramedics were summoned to take Gray to a hospital.[2] He was taken to the University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, in a coma within an hour of being taken into police custody.[2][12] The statement of charges filed by Officer Garrett Miller against Gray accused him of possessing a switchblade. Miller wrote, “The defendant was arrested without force or incident.”[1] Officers also reported “that he suffered a medical emergency during transport”

Freddie Gray was apparently murdered by a member of the Baltimore police.

Riots and Unrest.

I cannot claim to even be across the specific facts of the Freddie Gray case, that is my basic understanding, After the funeral of Freddy Gray in Baltimore there were riots and looting across several Baltimore neighborhoods. Buildings and cars were burned and it was shocking to see a group of African-American students apparently attack the police with rocks.

RAW Baltimore rioters attack police with rocks

Violent Actions Mean the Victory of Injustice.
The rage is at a very high level and it is based in real injustice, but all these type of actions only buttress the police state and injustice they seek to oppose by making them seem necessary suddenly to the frightened people of white suburbia, who suddenly forget about the fact that the police are brutal and criminal and start thinking they need these police to protect them from the angry black people. It is sad that people think that way maybe, but that is the case.
The only way the police culture and administration of justice will improve if that is even possible, will be through political dialogue and argument.

The Battle of Ideas.

That has to be the battlefield, the battle ground of ideas, the gap between the police and the people all around needs to be vastly reduced. All the adversarial habits of both sides, of all sides are going to be unhelpful in the necessary drastic reform and renewal of US police culture.
I understand why people talk about a Civil war, but it should not even be contemplated.
That is the plot and there has to be a better way. A legal way.

Spectacular destruction masks the actual issue.

The Tragic History of Black America.
It finally occurred to me reading a biography of Sonny Liston, the heavyweight boxing champion of the 1960s. Famously defeated twice by Mohammed Ali.

Sonny Liston was born in the 1930s, He was raised just the same as a slave. Illiterate, child laborer, share cropper they called them. They were basically just like serfs from medieval societies.
So when advocates of Neo- Liberal economics speak of a level playing field, there never was a level playing field in the US, just an end to overt racial segregation.

I am against affirmative action as it operates today, it is an insulting joke, but I am strong;y in favour of a completely different type of affirmative action at the building block levels, at the level of child health and education, that would be a great area for affirmative action for poor people in general in order to build a better educated and more productive population if that is the goal of the US.

The people who were technically freed from slavery, were not equipped to compete on the white-collar marketplace . Slavery was not a job, it was a way of life and one of the elements of slavery was illiteracy.
Children of illiterate people are at an inherent developmental disadvantage. It is harder for those parents to pre-school educate their children so this is a disadvantage that has remained inbuilt and it is based on the remnants of tthat initial injustice of the system of slavery.
African-Americans and other blue-collar Americans should have more money spent on their child health and education as a way to ameliorate these disadvantages and create a more productive community. You need to fix things from the ground up, not apply the silly and insulting affirmative action after the fact.

The decline of inner city life in the US is clearly linked to the policy of destroying the US industrial base and moving as much manufacturing as possible off shore. While consumers do benefit somewhat from these free trade policies, the impact on the societies of the West is very clear and it has been disastrous.

The riots only encourage and strengthen the police state sadly.

A Change is Clearly Required.

Real leadership, political leadership should seek to take drastic measures against the status quo.
Someone needs to figure out a way to end the high unemployment areas, create jobs, empty the prisons of the non violent criminals and try to put these fractured communities back together.
It will take decades, but the whole inner city decay of the past forty years must be reversed.
Wall Street must pay transaction taxes, and the madness in the Middle East must end.

The American Way of Life Declined While the Empire’s Middle Eastern Wars took Precedence over the People.

The budget of the US military should be cut by 75% over time and almost all the bases should be dismantled and all pretensions towards being some type of overseer or hegemon should be abandoned.
It is clear that the US will never have anything but a destructive and destabilising influence in the Middle East.. It has been a nightmare for all concerned and they may as well simply leave. They will only makes things worse no matter what they do. All else is simply delusion.
All those J Dams, those billions of dollars worth of bombs, never actually helped the people of the US, nor did any of the wars. Ever.